Blogroll

EVENTS

Snowden goes online

If only these clowns were as slick as 007. But they’re beginning to look a lot more like agent 86 and there’s reportedly much more to come. In that vein the Guardian hosted an online Q & A with NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden this morning, it’s a fascinating read. Here’s a few excerpts:

Journalists should ask a specific question: since these programs began operation shortly after September 11th, how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive that, and ask yourself if it was worth it. Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we’ve been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.

Further, it’s important to bear in mind I’m being called a traitor by men like former Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead.

It’s entertaining as hell to observe politicians and head spooks who are used to evading and lying with impunity get caught flat-footed. They don’t know what Snowden even has, and it’s clear that he and Greenwald are going to mete out the reports in part based on what lies the usual suspect try to spin. Thus undercutting their credibility while revealing the extent of their deception, incompetence, and — my guess — some degree of raw monetary greed.

Comments

Snowden lost my sympathies when he started talking about our spy programs to the Chinese. Blowing the whistle on the NSA spying in US citizens is one thing. Talking about them spying on our enemies (ie, their job) is over the line.

I think that d.c.wilson is referring to how Snowden has been accused of being a Chinese spy. Mano Singham posted about the accustions, and Snowden has denied it. As far as I know, there is no evidence that it is true, just speculation based on Snowden moving to Hong Kong.